Harvard Business Review: people look for a business they can trust, that enhances their daily lives through work life balance etc., is ethical, they connect with & that contributes to society (This is all reflected in employer branding)

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Internal Employer Branding

This type of branding is connected to the company's corporate culture & illustrates the organisation's climate

It's about achueving empoyee engagement & it helps to build the internal relationship of employers

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External Employer Branding

Once internal branding has been established a business can focus on external strategies through:

Career Websites

A good career website example according to ERE recruiting is Hymans because:

it's also advertised on the company website,

it's slightly different from the company website which shows that they put effort in

has job titles on separate pages -> more hits on google because it's easier to index,

has a good FAQ section

it's filled with key words which reflect the employer brand

Social Media

For example, Innocent Smoothies has a brilliant social media presence with fun tweets and Facebook posts of animals, smoothies, careers informaion and jokes

Employer Ranking sites

For example the times provides a ranking of the top 100 companies to work for every yer e.g. Jaguar Land Rover was the winner in 2016

It's based on job satisfaction and whether employees would recommend working there -> illustrates how internal employer branding must come first

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Psychological Contract RECAP

Written contracts = only necessary when things go wrong

Employer Brand = used to create positive psychological contract, in order to increase employee performance level

Employer brand can be seen as an articulation of the psychological contract

The effectiveness of employer brand can then be reviewe by things such as employee surveys

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Positives of employer brand

effective employer brand helps to attract human capital -> higher employee engagement, reduced people costs.CIPD (2013)- £8,000 for senior manager, £3,000 for general staff & This is key in the age of the ‘war for talent’ ->StartupOutlook Survey UK 2016found that 95% of UK business leaders believe it’s challenging to find people with the right skills to help grow their business!Employer brand helps to address concerns of global reputationIt helps to create people’s social identity! Highhouseet al-> membership of an organisation with a strong employer brand also have a stronger identity tied to that brand -> enhances commitment and employee engagementIn an age where companies can’t hide from people’s experiences at work it is very important to have a strong employer brand & to ensure the psychological contract represented in the employer brand is not breachedE.g. glassdoor.com is used anonymously by employees to write in depth reviews of their workplace for job searchers->Layfield& Barrett, a law firm, recently took glassdoor.com to court over negative reviews

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Negatives of employer brand

A lot of the time employer brand does not match the company’s real corporate cultureleads to a psychological contract breach or violation. E.g. Enronbecause it suggested that one of its values was integrity BUT this clearly wasn’t mirrored in the behaviour of the organisation or its employees. For example, the Enron scandal involved lies about profits as well as debts beings concealedIt is likely that a change in employer branding, as with any change of corporate culture, would lead to a loss of current employees as they would refuse to change with the organisation. This could lead to valuable human capital lossEmployer brand can limit organisations e.g. by restricting diversity*A survey of HR professionals, employed and unemployed professionals in 2015 found thatNegative product reviews appear to be more damaging than bad remarks on employer review sites. i.e. not always about employer branding! It’s also about the products the company sells

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More positives....

Asurvey of HR professionals, employed and unemployed professionals in 2015 foundthat75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job.Almaçik&Almaçikconducted a study involving 600 individuals and found that the social value of an organisation was the most important factor when seeking employment. This involves the following aspects :1.career enhancing experience2.Feeling good about working there3.Feeling of belonging4.Having a good relationship with superiors5.Feeling valued by the organisation6.Good promotion opportunities7.Recognition for work8.Job security

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More negatives..

Not every company has the resources to implement employer branding!survey of HR professionals-> UNDER 60% of companies have an employer brand strategy.Almost half didn’t have the tools or internal support to implement employer branding initiativesThere are other ways to enhance the recruitment process e.g.CareerBuilderfound that 70% believed increased salary would improve employee retention. Findings suggested that this was the deciding factor for employee retentionAlmaçik&Almaçik : gender differences in what is important during a job search. Women are more likely to look for social values in comparison to men -> Importance of employer brand may differ based on percentage of men/women working there!

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Future Changes

In the next five years it has been predicted that companies will be focusing onSecuring long term employeesBuilding a more global employer brand rather than a local employer brandFurther differentiating from competitors*Aligning consumer brand and employer brand